Monday, January 24, 2011

Red Dead Redemption: Second Chances

 I have only had this blog going for a few weeks, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time knocking Red Dead Redemption.  As a fan of third person shooters, westerns, and games that have wildly ambitious storytelling goals, I went into Red Dead Redemption with a lot of hope and expectations.  The opening of the story, largely telling the story of a troubled ranch on the Mexican border, was a lot of fun.  I never could get into the main character of John Marsten, or understand this redemption that he droned on and on about.  Eventually I just gave up on the game.

Apparently I picked just the wrong time to do that.  A few weeks ago, after stumbling on some spoilers from the fabulous tvtropes pages for Red Dead Redemption, I decided that I had to jump back into the game.  Whereas I am used to and more fond of games where you control the story (like my beloved Mass Effect series), Red Dead Redemption takes a different approach.  Although you play as John Marsten, you only slowly get to see who he is and how his life has shaped him.  Over time Marsten has gone from a bland, incomprehensible gunhand to one of the more interesting characters in gaming.  I rounded out the second major storyline of the game last night and while caught up in the emotions of the scene chose to resolve a problem with gunplay where it may not have been needed.  I immediately regretted the decision and wish that I had taken a more peaceful approach.  A shooter that can make you wish you hadn’t taken a shot is a rare thing.

Over the next few weeks I will likely finish Red Dead Redemption and eventually will post a more thorough review.  In the mean time, it turns out that this self described “semi-literate farmer and hired killer” is one heck of a character.

7 comments:

  1. You probably did give up at the wrong time. This is a big, sprawling game and (my opinion} one of the best. Three younger members of the family have played the game - this has led to them reading and watching westerns. So the game has merit.

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  2. You are right, I did give up at the wrong time. I actually finished the game two nights ago after starting it almost a year ago. I'll get around to completing my thoughts on in soon.

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  3. I'm glad to hear the game redeemed itself for you (appropriately enough), since in going back to your early posts I was surprised to hear the vitriol of how much you didn't like it -- but on the other hand was curious to hear why, so was searching around for your promised follow-up.

    I know for my own part I ended up really, really invested in John Marston and his troubles by the end. And oh, what an end. I think RDR also deserves props for sticking adamantly to the "mundane" world of the Old West (with one subtle exception that I actually never ran across in my playthrough) and still making it a relevant and fascinating story. Although I enjoyed the Undead Nightmare expansion in its own right--go figure--the core game has no need of demons and ghosts and such, just men and women and all their foibles on the frontier.

    It may not be perfect, but it's a real love letter to the entire genre.

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  4. Is that exception the mysterious, unkillable man that sends you on morally challenging quests? I loved that part. I also recall that there is one area where you can encounter an X-Files style alien. Am I thinking of the right game?

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  5. I know aliens have been a traditional easter egg in the Fallout series (which by the way, the first part of New Vegas has a great Western vibe... even if the rest not so much), but I don't remember any mention of such in the RDR wikis. But yeah, the mystery man... one of these days I need to see about loading up an earlier RDR save and experiencing that sequence, since I completely missed out on it.

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  6. I'm glad you came back to the game and enjoyed it. I kind of had the same experience. I put the game down after a few hours, and a year two later I got a new T.V. so I decided to play it. I played it through and really enjoyed it, especially the end.

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  7. I'm glad you came back to the game and enjoyed it. I kind of had the same experience. I put the game down after a few hours, and a year two later I got a new T.V. so I decided to play it. I played it through and really enjoyed it, especially the end.

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